


Surprise?

by grapehyasynth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, TV Writer!Jemma, jumps around a lot time-wise -- not chronological!, reporter!fitz
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-09-19 20:38:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9459554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: 10 years after he last saw -- and hooked up with -- class valedictorian Jemma Simmons, intrepid reporter Fitz is tasked with interviewing her about her successful career writing for television. But he gets more than he bargained for.**originally from my drabbles collection**





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Per an anon's suggestion, I'm moving series over from my drabbles collections to un-clutter it a bit. But I'm only moving completed series. If you see an uncompleted one over there (like this one) that you'd like to see moved into its own fic, please let me know.

“Relax, mate,” Hunter chuckled as he wired Fitz in.

“I’m not nervous,” Fitz lied.

“Right. I’m sure you _always_ shake before interviews.” Mack snorted and went back to positioning the lights.

“Man’s interviewed warlords and presidents and the bloody pope but it’s a little English lady who makes him tremble in his boots.” Hunter tugged sharply on the tape holding Fitz’s mic in place and Fitz hissed. “Couldn’t have anything to do with the last time you two saw each other, could it?”

“Wait, you know this chick?” Mack demanded as Fitz snapped, “Hunter! I told you that in confidence.”

“And I’m teasing you about it in private, what’s the harm?” Hunter protested. “You’re all set, mate.”

“Wait, how do _you_ know Jemma Simmons?”

Seeing Mack was unlikely to let this go, Fitz sighed and rubbed his eyebrow, probably the only safe bit of his face left after make-up had gotten to him. “I don’t _know_ her. We went to uni together. She was top of the class, just ahead of me. We… god, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. We hooked up the night before graduation–”

“Had sex,” Hunter clarified gleefully. “None of that heated snogging and then see-you-later.”

“Is that right?” Mack grinned. “Little Fitz got with future media darling Jemma Simmons. No wonder you’re nervous.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fitz muttered, wiping his hands on his trousers again so he wouldn’t soak his note cards through. “I thought it was the culmination of four years of heated rivalry, but we woke up the next morning and she had no clue who I was.”

Mack whistled. “Ouch.”

This ridiculous drama was exactly what Fitz had been hoping to avoid, when he’d asked his agency to let him take a more stable gig after a decade of traveling the world reporting on everything from famine and disease to local innovation and social movements. An entertainment news show was not exactly his cuppa, but it meant living in one setting and having a group of friends and sleeping in a real bed every night.

At least Jemma Simmons was a TV writer instead of one of the reality show whackjobs he could’ve been sent to interview. It took an exceptional writer to break through the glamor of the people in front of the camera, but Jemma had done just that. She was being compared to Shonda Rhimes, and as private as she was with her personal life, the fact that she’d let them into her home for an exclusive was a privilege.

And it wasn’t like he’d spent the last ten years mooning over her. Alright, so he’d thought about her every now and then. You start to glance back over your life, when bombs are falling around you, and Jemma had been a bright, if brief, spot in Fitz’s life. He’d had a crush on her all through uni and the night they’d had together had been nothing short of extraordinary. The morning after, though, finding out she had no idea who he was…

“Are you ready for me?” Jemma bustled into the room, beaming with infectious energy.

So much hadn’t changed in ten years.

“Right here, Mrs. Simmons.” Mack pointed her towards one of the chairs in front of the cameras.

“Oh, it’s Miss. Thank you,” she added, settling down.

Fitz sat carefully across from her. They’d made a bit of idle chit-chat when he and his team had first shown up at her door, but in the time it’d taken her to change and get her make-up done, he seemed to have lost the bravado and ease he’d acquired over his reporting career.

“Been a while, hasn’t it?” Jemma whispered, leaning in conspiratorially. “I can’t tell you the thoughts that went through my head when they said they were sending _you_ of all people–”

“We’re going to start the tape rolling, but we’ll cut this bit out in post,” Hunter called, his face already plastered to the back of one of the cameras. “Keep talking and we’ll adjust the sound levels.”

“You’re not the only one surprised I’ve ended up here,” Fitz joked, then blanched. “Not that I – not to disparage your work, I didn’t mean to say I’m taking a step down by doing this stuff–”

Jemma smiled kindly. “It’s alright, Fitz, I know what you meant.”

“We’re all set, start whenever you want,” Hunter cut in.

Fitz opened his mouth to launch into the light introductory banter when there was a cry of “Mummy!” and a flash of orange shot across the living room and plowed into Jemma.

“You’re home early!” Jemma laughed, wrapping her arms around the little boy. “Did you have fun at Peter’s?”

The boy nodded and turned to stare at the strange men in his living room.

Except–

Except the unruly blonde curls and intense blue eyes and even the serious set of his mouth was familiar.

“Holy shit,” someone, probably Hunter, said behind him.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Jemma was watching him nervously. She scooped the boy up and onto her lap and said tremulously, “Surprise?”


	2. Chapter 2

“And your big break was during the, um… the…” Fitz tried to find his place in his note cards but the text swam before him, the lights unusually hot and his collar tighter than it had been twenty minutes before. “The–”

“The third series of _Maveth_ , yes,” Jemma interrupted him helpfully, nodding. “One of the writers on the show was a sort of mentor for me and convinced the EPs to give me a chance to tackle a script all by myself. It ended up being one of the most highly-rated episodes of the show, so they promoted me to the head writing staff and the rest is history.”

Fitz knew she’d given him ample openings for follow-ups, but he’d stopped listening halfway through. Her son – _their son?!_ – was still sitting on Jemma’s lap, bouncing slightly on her knee while she talked and staring at Fitz unblinkingly. The boy was a little over nine, given their timeline, but he studied Fitz as if he saw, and understood, everything.

As Fitz watched, the boy lifted a hand to his mouth and began to suck on the side of his index finger, just like Fitz did as a child. He’d been teased for how serious and studious it looked, when all the other kids sucked on their thumbs, and he would still find himself pressing his finger to his lips when he got lost in thought.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” he burst out, overtop of whatever Jemma had been saying at that point. He dropped the notes and wrenched the mic off his collar. “I can’t do this.”

Why had they agreed to do this interview in her house? It left him nowhere to flee, not knowing the layout, and he ended up in what must be her office, with post-its tacked everywhere and stacks of filled notebooks and a framed picture of Charlie, her – _their_ – son.

He wheeled away from it – maybe he should get some fresh air – and nearly ran smack into Jemma.

“Fitz, I–”

He shook his head to silence her and held a shaking hand against his forehead. After a strained silence in which he somehow got his breath to even out marginally, he choked out, “How? Why? We were safe, I thought–”

“We _were_ ,” Jemma insisted. “But things happen. And then we graduated the next day, and – I was going to get an abortion, but… I couldn’t. And then I was going to give him up for adoption, but I found I couldn’t do that either. I didn’t know how to contact you, and I moved to LA and started writing, and the next time I saw you it was on the telly, reporting from Malaysia for the BBC. A baby would’ve only gotten in your way, if you even _wanted_ to be a da.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make!” Fitz shouted.

“Would you have dropped everything, then?” Jemma shot back fiercely. “Would you have given up your career, settled into this type of reporting, which you _just_ admitted you disdained? We were twenty-two, Fitz, and we didn’t even know each other. You would’ve hated me, hated him, for tying you down–”

“That’s not true,” Fitz ground out, but Jemma had obviously given this a lot of thought and needed to have her say.

“And if you had kept on reporting, doing the long-distance parenting thing, that would’ve been its own disaster! His dad would’ve been some fictional character who appears once a year like Santa.”

“I don’t – that’s not–” Fitz covered his face in his hands, because he could no more imagine that what she was saying was true than he could deny it. 

“I’ve done a million things wrong, Fitz,” Jemma whispered. “I will readily take that blame. But Charlie is happy and safe and healthy. And if you’d like to be a part of his life, we’re ready for you.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Ten years ago..._

 

“Introduce us,” Jemma pleaded.

“Introduce yourself!”

“Trip, pleeeeeease. It’s my last chance!”

“Jemma,” Trip chuckled, “you’ve been crushing on Fitz since he got a higher Botany score than you in our first year. You could’ve introduced yourself a dozen times every day – when you followed him to class, when you spied on him at the newspaper, when you–”

“Not so loud,” Jemma hissed, shoving a hand over her friend’s mouth and glancing around the crowded party to see if anyone had overheard.

“I’m not helping you,” he finished firmly.

“You’re supposed to be my wingman!”

“For setting you up with strangers, yeah. You’re asking me to hook you up with my friend, when you very well know who he is and he very well knows who you are. You just want to be able to say you banged the salutatorian.”

“It has a nice symmetry to it, alright?” Jemma grumbled. “I’ve been top of everything else at this school, why shouldn’t I be on top of him?”

“Oh, hell no,” Trip groaned and pretended to vomit into the punch bowl. “That’s just foul, Jemma. My poor ears.”

It was true that Jemma had been scoping Leo Fitz out for several years. They’d never personally interacted, however much their classes and friend circles had at times overlapped, but she’d always found all sorts of strange little things about him incredibly alluring, from the stretch of the side of his neck to his jutting wristbone to the excellent fit of his slacks.

He _never_ went to parties, so she’d been shocked to see him here. In fact, he had a reputation for avoiding everything _college_ about college: the hook-ups, the frat basements, the pep rallies, the boat shoes. Trip couldn’t remember Fitz ever going out with anyone, which only made Jemma want to take him home and defile him all that much more, just for the extra challenge.

And here they were. Tomorrow they would all begin to go their separate ways – Jemma had a flight in a week that would take her towards her dream of writing in Hollywood, Trip and his girlfriend Daisy were headed to grad school in Atlanta, and Fitz – Well, that wasn’t important. She was sure he’d be off to something amazing, but for the purposes of tonight’s adventure, she didn’t need to know.

“I’ll just do it without you, then,” she sniffed at Trip.

“Like you needed my help anyway,” he grinned.

She rolled her eyes and turned to face the room, scouting for Fitz.

He was standing by the door, staring deep into his red cup as if asking a magic 8 ball hidden within whether it was too soon to leave.

“You look thrilled!” Jemma shouted over the music as she approached.

“What?” he yelled back.

She placed a hand on his far shoulder and leaned right in, letting her mouth brush his ear as she repeated, “You look really thrilled to be here!”

He shrugged, and she let her hand slip down into the warm crook of his elbow. The lingering touch was obvious, but she tonight, obvious seemed appropriate.

“My friends dragged me,” he explained. “Said I’d regret it if I didn’t come.”

 _I’ll regret it if_ I _don’t come_ , Jemma thought, but maybe that would be coming on a bit _too_ strong. “And? What’s your assessment?”

“I’m definitely regretting something,” he sighed.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

He blinked at her. His cup was still entirely full and his breath didn’t smell, so it wasn’t alcohol addling his reaction. “Sorry?”

First-year Jemma would’ve fled, but fourth-year Jemma had fought her way through enough misogyny and defied enough impossible assignments to develop a steely core. Instead of retreating, she skated her fingertips across the front of his shirt and down along the buttons. “My dorm’s just up the block. None of this pesky noise or crowd. If you wanted to … chat…”

“Chat. Right,” he gulped.

“Or not chat,” she murmured, leaning in so his day-old stubble scratched her lips when he turned towards her.

He struggled for words for a beat, then he swallowed and said, voice strained, “Just up the block, you said?”

 

 

The second they crossed the threshold into her apartment, Jemma had Fitz up against the door, fingers digging into his neck as she launched straight into the French variety of kissing.

Fitz responded in kind – recluse he may be, but inexpert he most certainly was not – with hands up under her blouse to pull her hard against him. His hot skin against her perpetually-cold back made her hiss with shock and pleasure and he took the momentary breath to slide a hand under her bum and lift her up along one of his legs. The pressure sent a jolt of need straight through Jemma’s core and she realized she needed to move them along.

Fitz, if anything, seemed to be slowing down.

“Sorry,” he mumbled against her mouth, “but I realized I don’t know your name.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jemma whispered, and she wrenched his shirt open with a snap and a few lost buttons.

“Well, alright then,” he grinned.

 

In the bedroom, they stripped frantically. It would’ve been unromantic if Jemma weren’t already so wound up and if the sight of Fitz’s hard cock freed from his boxers weren’t so terribly welcome.

“Condom?” Fitz asked, trying to follow her to the bed but tripping over his jeans, which were still around his ankles.

Jemma rolled over to the side, squeezing her legs together and surreptitiously kneading one breast as she rifled through her bedside drawer with her free hand. She tossed it to him and he hobbled across the mattress on his knees, rolling the condom on at the same time. Jemma settled back against the pillows, panting in anticipation.

“Ready?” he whispered.

“Wait!” Jemma’s hand flew between them, brushing low on his stomach. His muscles tensed deliciously. ( _God, if there’s time, I plan on getting well_ _acquainted with_ every _part of him._ ) “Can I be on top?”

Fitz looked like he might faint when she suggested it, and again when she straddled him and held herself, thighs trembling, above his quite-ready cock.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispered fiercely, and then she slid him into her.

They both groaned. Jemma threw her head back, arched her spine and gripped Fitz’s upper thighs for support.

“Oh, my, yes,” she gasped, rolling her hips in a circle as he thrust against her. The counter-motions pushed him deeper and seemed to brush against all her over-sensitive nerves at once. “Oh _god_ yes.”

“Like that?” Fitz grunted, gripping her hips tightly so he could drag her down and thrust into her simultaneously.

“Yesssss.” She hated that she couldn’t kiss him from here, that his hot, wet tongue wasn’t tracing her jaw and nipples and the soft skin under her forearms and other places farther down, but they were only human, after all. ( _Maybe on round 2_.) “ _More_.”

No wonder he was second in the class. The way he immediately brought his thumb around and wiggled it through to find her clit – brilliant man. She could get used to someone who could take orders like that.

But then – “Oooooohhhhh,” she moaned, because not only was Fitz brilliant and obedient, but he was obviously inventive. Every time he thrust into her, he’d circle her clit _just a hair later_ , triggering a cascade of sensations. By the time she could get her mind clear from the explosion rippling out from her clit, he’d be slamming his cock up into her again, and within minutes she was soaring into white-hot orgasm. As she clenched around Fitz, she felt him stutter up against her as he came, too.

“Bloody hell yes,” he was still groaning as she collapsed against him.

She giggled and nipped at his sweat-slick collarbone. “How are you doing with those regrets now?”

“I still have a few,” Fitz said quite seriously, “but I plan on crossing them all off in the next few hours.

 

The next day, after the graduation ceremony but before she went to dinner with her family, Jemma stooped to retrieve the condom wrapper from the floor where she’d missed it in her frantic clean-up after Fitz had left. She flipped it over in her fingers idly, blushing despite herself at the memories of their previous night’s activities, and was about to drop it into the waste bin when she saw the expiration date.

“No,” she whispered. “ _No_!”

She threw the wrapper aside and dug in the bin with her bare hands. They’d gone through a few condoms, and she had to check each tied-off, sticky one. _Fine, fine, fine, f–_

Her hands trembled as she raised the one all the way at the bottom to eye-level.

There, at the tip, was a tiny but unmistakeable rip.


	4. Chapter 4

“Do you want to meet him?” Jemma asked tentatively. “Properly meet him, I mean, in a setting where your eyes won’t bug out of your head?”

“My eyes didn’t–”

“They did,” Jemma chuckled, and as her shoulders relaxed, Fitz realized how terrified she had been of this conversation, and, possibly, of him. “I’ve never seen anyone look so terrified.”

He trailed her back into the living room, where Hunter and Mack were huddled, obviously gossiping, around the camera. He thought he heard the word “baby mama” and winced.

“Shall we have a second go at it?” Hunter queried, glancing eagerly between Fitz and Jemma.

“Maybe a print interview would be best,” Mack suggested considerately.

“I think they’ll have to reassign this piece,” Fitz admitted. He halted halfway between Jemma and his coworkers, unsure which world he felt least uncomfortable in. “Conflict of interest, you know.”

“I dunno, could be a really fascinating, _intimate_ perspective–”

“We’ll just get out of your hair,” Mack cut in firmly, steering Hunter towards the equipment.

Jemma jerked her head towards the kitchen and Fitz followed her.

“Hey Charlie,” she murmured, stepping up beside the boy where he was perched on a stool, eating celery smeared with peanut butter, and ruffled his curls. Fitz instinctively reached up to his own hair, wondering how that might feel– “Charlie, this is Fitz. Fitz is–”

“My dad, I know,” the boy said solemnly, glancing up at Fitz.

Fitz had never in his life fainted, but he instantly knew how it was possible. Their eyes met, and just like the first time, the world fell away and something ached behind his eyes and _he was someone’s father_ –

“Hey Charlie,” Fitz choked out.

“Do you want some iced tea?” Jemma asked hurriedly, obviously recognizing Fitz’s paralysis.

“Don’t have anything stronger, do you?” Fitz muttered, hoping Charlie wouldn’t hear.

“Sorry,” Jemma laughed. “My last boyfriend was a recovering alcoholic and I never got back in the habit of keeping it in the house.”

“Did he, ehm–” Fitz scratched self-consciously behind one ear, knowing how this would sound. “Did he ever call any of your boyfriends ‘dad’?”

“No,” Jemma insisted, turning a bit too quickly from the fridge and placing a hand on his arm. “Fitz, I promise you, he’s always known it was you. I think he has your _60 Minutes_ special memorized.”

She gave him a little conciliatory smile and Fitz felt that burning behind his eyes again, only this time he wasn’t thinking of everything he’d missed but wondering about the sacrifices Jemma had made over the past ten years.

He took a steadying breath and turned back to the island, leaning across it towards Charlie.

“So, what did your mum promise you if you ate that rabbit food?”

Charlie grinned and licked the peanut butter out of a piece of celery, leaving the vegetable on his plate. “Spagbol for dinner.”

“Spagb–” Fitz glanced over his shoulder at Jemma in time to see her rolling her eyes. “Glad to see LA hasn’t totally ruined your taste.”

She smacked a coaster down in front of him and handed him his iced tea, scolding, “No ganging up on me, you two! He’s a devilish prankster,” she added as an aside to Fitz.

“Eeeexcellent,” Fitz intoned dramatically, rubbing his hands together, and Charlie snorted with laughter.

 

When Fitz left an hour later, he was still debating asking if he could join for spagbol, but Jemma had given him one of Charlie’s drawings off the fridge and felt he’d already stretched her generosity. Besides, he was feeling exhausted from the emotional whiplash of the day. Still, he hesitated on the porch.

“Dinner!” Jemma blurted behind him, at the same time that he started, “Can I–”

“Sorry, you go first,” Jemma smiled, tugging her cardigan around her and leaning against the door frame.

“If you’re ever – are there school functions, or sporting events, or anything you two go to together, where I could tag along?” he asked nervously. “Learn how things work?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Jemma gushed. “I have a Google calendar, I can share it with you–”

“Color-coded, no doubt?”

“God, was my reputation _that_ infamous? I’ll have you know I have chilled out _immensely_ since university,” she protested, but she was smiling. “And Google color-codes it for you.”

“As I recall, you had _no_ chill at uni,” he teased.

“Four years of chill and I get blamed for the _one night_ I seduced you,” she groaned, throwing her hands into the air.

 _Four years of chill_? Had Jemma been interested in him before that night? “You were saying something about dinner?”

“Oh– I just thought – you might have questions I can’t answer with Charlie here, if you ever wanted to… we could, if you want, get dinner somewhere, sometime. Just us.”

“I – yes,” Fitz said immediately, hoping he didn’t sound as desperately relieved as he felt.

“Excellent.” Jemma smiled. “I’ll call you. And Fitz? I’m sorry for ruining your interview.”

He grinned despite himself. He’d entered her house a world-traveled reporter with a bit of a chip on his shoulder and left a father. “I think it was a joint endeavor.”

Jemma blushed, and Fitz imagined her head had just filled with all sorts of distinctly not-family-friendly memories. “Touché.”


	5. Chapter 5

“I’m so sorry to spring this on you,” Jemma gushed the instant she opened the door, her expression sincere and pained even as she grabbed Fitz’s wrist and dragged him inside. “I promise you I did _not_ bring you into his life so you could babysit—“

“I can think of far more eligible candidates for that,” Fitz chuckled.

Jemma turned to scowl at him, but the expression had the opposite effect she’d intended. To Fitz it was further evidence that, though they’d only been doing this coparenting thing for a few weeks now, she already felt comfortable enough with him to be, if necessary, brutally honest. So her withering glance, rather than cowing him, sent a warm flutter through his chest.

“He’s not having a good day,” Jemma told him quietly. “He came home from school in a bit of a tiff and I haven’t been able to get out of him what caused it. I know that’s only going to make it more awkward for you, but—“

“Hey buddy!” Fitz called over her head to Charlie, who was sprawled on his stomach on the living room carpet, nose an inch away from an open book.

“Buddy?” Jemma snorted softly.

“I’m trying, okay?” he shot back, tempted to pinch her elbow in reprimand but unsure what their physical boundaries consisted of.

“Fine, just… no buddy,” she whispered, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “And, Fitz? Don’t overthink it. You’re not some fraternity brother who’s had to give up his lecherous ways for parenthood. You’ve always had a nurturing, responsible quality about you.” She winced as he stepped back in genuine surprise. “Don’t overthink that either, please. I wasn’t thinking ‘father material’ when we hooked up. I wasn’t thinking much at all, really, but then… Oh, bloody hell. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

He grinned as she swept her purse off the counter and started back down the hall to the front door. He couldn’t resist calling after her, “We still haven’t talked about that, you know. Or our second date.”

“First real date,” she corrected, spinning to face him, her back to the door. “And I know, I’m sorry. I was hoping when I got back tonight I could take out my planner and—“

“Planner,” he scoffed, “that’s romantic.”

“I _was_ intending to clear a sizeable chunk of time for you, not only in the evening but also the next morning, should it be necessary, but if you disagree…”

“Nope, nope, not at all, perfect plan,” Fitz said quickly, hoping she couldn’t see the hot flush of his cheeks and equally hoping that Charlie hadn’t caught a word of their conversation. “So we’ll, just, uh, look that over when you get back.”

“Assuming our son is still alive.”

“I’m not going to kill him!” he shouted as she snapped the door shut. _Our son_. The words made his stomach do all sorts of strange things: he’d never had a person dependent on him before, let alone a person he’d _created_. A real, intelligent, terrifying little person.

Wiping his suddenly-sweaty palms on his trousers, he rounded the corner again and stood staring down at Charlie. What exactly did one _do_ with children?

“So, Charlie, d’you like … airplanes?”

The boy’s blue eyes – _my eyes_ – flicked briefly up to Fitz, then back to his page. “Not particularly.”

“Right. ‘Course not. I mean, from here you must fly out of LAX and that’s a nightmare, that would turn me off to the whole thing as well—“ Fitz forced himself to stop rambling and planted his hands on his hips. He’d spent the better part of the last ten years on airplanes, when he wasn’t on assignment. “Do you travel much?”

Charlie shrugged.

Fitz wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation with someone his own age, let alone a child who probably had a minute attention span because of all the technology he’d grown up using and _oh god I sound like a dad now, is this what Jemma meant_?

“What are you reading?” he asked nervously, crouching down at Charlie’s side.

“ _War and Peace_.”

Fitz laughed, and Charlie glanced up, brow furrowed. (Another familiar expression, even the tightening lips something Fitz knew from his own moments of anger.) “Sorry, it’s just – you can understand that?”

“Of course I can. I’m not stupid.”

“Yeah, no, I know you’re not,” Fitz said quickly.

“And I’m not a freak either,” Charlie muttered down at the book, so softly Fitz almost didn’t catch it.

Fitz’s discomfort vanished instantly, a chill taking its place. “Did someone say you are?” Charlie didn’t answer. “Do the – do the kids at school say that?”

Charlie was silent for so long Fitz assumed the conversation was over. Then, the boy murmured, “Not to my face.”

Fitz gripped his knees to keep himself from clenching his hands into fists. Charlie was still looking expressionlessly down at the book, but Fitz knew better than to think that no expression meant no reaction. “Yeah, I know the feeling.”

At this Charlie looked up, eyes slightly wide. “You? But you’re – you’re, like, _cool_.” He blushed a bit, obviously embarrassed by the very un-cool assessment, totally unaware that he’d just become the first person to ever call Leopold Fitz cool.

Inside, Fitz was dancing an elated jig, but now he had a reputation to uphold, apparently, so he remained as calm as possible.

“I’m very much not,” Fitz chuckled, and he dropped back to sit properly with crossed legs. His knee bumped Charlie’s side but the boy didn’t shift away. “I know your mum said you saw some of my specials, my reports from the field, but trust me – they make all that stuff look glamorous, like I’m diving through minefields to get a good story. Most of the time I was dropping the microphone and pushing doors that said ‘pull’. And when all the other guys were out at the club I was probably in my hotel room, working on an assignment or reading or something else equally un-cool.”

Charlie eyed him, still skeptical.

“Honestly, Je- your mum was always the cool one at university.”

“Mum?” Charlie laughed, head dropping forward against his book. “No way. She’s nerdy and her jokes are terrible and she gets excited about the weirdest stuff.”

“Yeah, she does,” Fitz admitted. It sounded like nothing had changed since he’d known – or rather, known _of_ – Jemma all those years ago. “But that’s kind of what makes her cool, you know?”

Charlie thought for a moment, then nodded decisively. “I’m glad she’s my mum. And—“ He looked up a little hesitantly. “I think I’m glad you’re my dad, too.”

Fitz cleared his throat violently, fighting against the tears burning at the corners of his eyes. ( _Crying?! Honestly, Leopold. Get a grip!_ ) Unsure how one could possibly respond to that, he said instead, “D’you know what I could go for right now? Ice cream. I know your mum’s a health nut but she’s got to have some sugar somewhere…”

Charlie snapped the book shut and scrambled to his feet to follow his dad into the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got one or two more requests for continuation of this, let me know if you have requests!


	6. 60 Minutes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for anon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jumps back in time (if you didn't notice this thing ain't chronological all the time)

“Mummummummummumumum it’s starting! Come on come on come on!” Charlie yelped, dragging Jemma out of her deck chair and into the house.

“I’m recording it, it’ll still be there when we’ve finished eating!” she laughed, but she’d seen his nervous energy all day and wouldn’t begrudge him a live viewing.

“Do you think they’ll mention you?” her son asked eagerly, half-wrapped over the arm of the couch.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s—” She blinked a little too fiercely and focused on the commercials flashing on the TV screen. “You know I haven’t – your father and I—”

“And after, after, hey mum after, can we look up how many people watched?”

Jemma laughed again. “I wish you were ever _half_ this excited about _my_ shows.”

“You won’t let me watch them, remember?” he shot back. “ ‘Not until you’re much, much older. Preferably married. Preferably after I’m dead.’”

“Curse your excellent memory,” she sighed.

“Got it from you, yeah. And my eyes from da.”

The music signaling the start of the program swelled into the room and Charlie’s jaw dropped. He stopped bouncing and leaned all the way forward in his seat.

Jemma, meanwhile, couldn’t look away from him. His pure delight at seeing his dad, whom he’d never met, on national television for a full hour – rather than his usual snippets of reporting in the news – was electric. Usually he was such a calm, reticent boy, brooding in a way that reminded her forcefully of the way Fitz had always sat on the other side of their classrooms, gloomy in that fascinating way. For all her regrets as a mother, instilling him with a proper love and respect for his unknowingly absent father was one of her unmitigated successes. It wasn’t Fitz’s fault he wasn’t part of his son’s life, after all, and while she felt Charlie’d had a full childhood with a single parent, Jemma had never been able to entirely let go of the idea of someday introducing him to his father.

Jemma _also_ couldn’t look away from Charlie because she was undeniably terrified to spend this long looking at Fitz.

It had been ten years. Ten years after one night. Alright, one night plus several years before that of lusting and sighing and pining and denying herself because she’d assumed Fitz hated her and she needed to focus on schoolwork. But still, she barely knew Fitz. Except for the excellent recommendations from friends and the quality journalism and his public Instagram feed replete with food and pictures of his mum, she knew almost nothing about him.

When she finally turned to watch _60 Minutes_ , she inhaled involuntarily and clenched her hands in her lap. His eyes, icy blue but not at all cold, were looking out at the audience as he spoke, and Jemma wished vehemently she’d not invested in the highest definition screen available. It was _pornographic_ , the way he looked. He’d been hot in a scraggly, gangly, nerdy, sweet kind of way in college --

And damn, the boy had aged like the finest of wines.

By the end of the hour, Jemma was feeling inappropriately flushed and Charlie was on the floor, the better to be close to Fitz and gape. As the credits began, he rolled over onto his back and said dazedly, “I want to watch it again.”

“We just watched it, love—”

“Pleeeeease, mum?”

Jemma sighed. “I’ll trade you one more viewing tonight for the rest of the salad you didn’t finish.”  

Charlie narrowed his eyes. “And I can watch it tomorrow after school?”

“Fine.” She was letting him get away with a murder of a deal, and if a third party had been present she’d have bargained a bit harder, but as it was, she set the program back to the start and settled deeper into her chair, grateful that the evening shadows hid the blush in her cheeks as she watched Fitz, noting the smallest twitches of his lips and the flurry of his hands and absolutely _not_ storing these as mental images for her own purposes later.


	7. Second First Date

Fitz couldn’t be certain, when a woman who was not Jemma opened the door, whether he hadn’t imagined the preceding month, or whether she hadn’t realized he was no good for her or Charlie and relocated with no forwarding address.

“Um, is—”

“Mmm, okay, okay,” the woman nodded, stepping out and appraising Fitz openly. “I can see why she likes you, I guess. I never really got the appeal from the TV bits but girl’s thirstier than I am—”

“Thank you, Daisy,” Jemma called, whooshing past the first woman and nearly colliding with Fitz. He steadied her with a hand on her elbow, and they shared a moment of breathless proximity as Fitz took in her mauve cocktail dress and she eyed his bowtie, biting her lip even as she smiled.

“Yeah, I’m gonna take these,” Daisy interrupted, tugging the bouquet out of Fitz’s hands. “For babysitting and for having to endure – whatever that was.”

“Put those in water,” Jemma said sternly as she turned to face her friend without moving from Fitz’s side. “And I’ll just take – this one. How’s it look?” she queried Fitz once she’d settle the white rose behind her ear.

 _You’re the most beautiful thing in the universe_ , he wanted to say, but he managed to only supply, “Very fetching.”

“Cool. Good talk. Nice to meet you, Fitzer. And just so we’re clear, I’m crashing the night here, so Jemma comes home that’s chill, if neither of you come home that’s fine, but if you both come back here we _will_ have a problem.”

 

 

 

They made it through fifteen minutes of conversation over the bread basket before Charlie came up. They’d both been doing their best not to make everything about him but he was right _there_ , even when he wasn’t, and Fitz was bursting to know everything.

“What was his first word?” He kept his eyes on the butter dish so she’d not see the painful curiosity in his face.

“Would you believe,” Jemma chuckled, setting her roll down and leaning forward on both forearms, “that it was _Poptart_?”

“Not for a second, no,” Fitz chortled, but the hot, anxious longing had curled into affection again, and he scooted his chair in for the inch it brought him closer to her.

“It’s true! He has a dreadful sweet tooth. All your fault, of course—“

“I’ve never eaten a Poptart in my _life_ —“

“Oh really?” She was grinning – he couldn’t even call it a smirk, as self-satisfied as it was, because it just made her glow and he’d never been so happy to make someone happy. “So if I were to ask Trip about your favorite study snacks from university, Poptarts wouldn’t be _anywhere_ on that list?”

“Of course not. Maybe – maybe they’d be, like, _twentieth_ —”

“Ah-ha!” Jemma flung crumbs across the table as she gestured triumphantly in his direction. “So you _have_ eaten them! They were probably in your system when we—”

“Eugh, gross, Jemma, please, this is a public establishment,” Fitz groaned, and as the waiter delivered their food she couldn’t do more than eye him saucily. He waited until she’d started in on her ravioli before adding casually, “You still talk to Trip, then?”

“Oh, hardly. He’s too busy with Daisy’s tongue down his throat,” she replied cheerily.

“Really? I always assumed you two were – you know,” he mumbled, blushing as she watched him lick away some tomato sauce lingering at the corner of his mouth.

“No. No no no,” Jemma laughed. “I love Trip, the dear man, but he’s not – we were close in university, of course, but I was always a bit blinded.”

“By what?”

“By you, of course,” Jemma murmured, and it was her turn to flush a shade close to her dress, though she had the balls not to look away.

Fitz finally remembered to slurp the dangling noodle into his mouth and not choke on it as he tried to catch up. “Wha – me?”

“I dated, of course,” she rambled on, seemingly unconscious of his surprise. “But I mean that in the most literal sense – I went out for coffee or accompanied some frat boy or other to his formal but I was only ever interested in you.”

“Why didn’t you bloody _say_ something?” Fitz moaned, sliding down in his seat as memories of years of wondering about enigmatic, bizarre, brilliant Jemma Simmons crashed in on him. “I was mad about you!”

“ _You_ could just have well have said something. Glad to hear we were both idiots.”

“I’m glad Charlie brought us together again, or we’d never have managed it.”

Jemma set down her silverware to look at him properly. “I want to be very clear about something, Fitz, and this is going to sound like scolding, Daisy’s told me time and again my normal informative voice can be a bit intense for some, but I promise it’s not a telling-off – Charlie is so much more than just a reason for us to see each other.”

Fitz flinched and a boiled tomato plopped from his fork onto the neat white napkin in his lap. “Bloody h—‘course he is, Jem, that’s not what I – oh, bugger—”

“I know you didn’t mean it like that,” she plowed over him, her eyes earnest, and she grabbed his free hand before he could hide his face in it. “But he has been the leading man in my life for nearly ten years and that’s not going to change, no matter what you and I become. I wanted you to meet him for _him_ , not for myself.”

“Yeah, I know, I know, I’m sorry—“

“ _I’m_ sorry,” Jemma insisted. She took a deep breath and coaxed his hand over so she could trace the lines of his palm with her fingertips; the simple action sent sparks up his arm. “I’m sorry I made this weird. “I probably could’ve waited to have that conversation, I’m just – I’m rather terribly invested in this, in all of this, and it’s so sudden, and I trust you an unreasonable amount, of course, but it’s still – it’s still _terrifying_. I’ve dated other men, of course, but – it’s _you,_ and it’s _Charlie_ , it’s a bit of a dream, and I don’t want—”

“We’re not gonna mess this up, Jemma,” he whispered, sliding his hand forward to cradle the soft underside of her wrist. It felt terribly intimate, somehow, and Jemma shifted in her chair, her foot brushing his. “I’m uncertain about nearly everything I’ve ever done but this – I don’t know why, but I’m not worried.”

That seemed to be what she needed to hear, for she closed her eyes briefly in apparent relief. Then she smiled and chuckled.

“Do you want to know something thoroughly embarrassing?”

“Of _course_ ,” he grinned. If he’d known Jemma was this…this… _captivating_ ten years ago, he’d’ve been a right wreck before, during, and after the sex.

“I’ve written you into one of my shows,” Jemma blurted out, then covered her mouth with the hand not on Fitz’s.

“You’ve what?”

“I wrote you over a few different characters so it won’t be readily obvious,” she explained, “but I used _that night_ and some little bits I knew of you from friends and even some of what I’ve learned from watching you report and I wrote it into characters on my show.”

“Should I be flattered?” Fitz queried slowly.

“Oh, hell, Fitz, I don’t know. _Are_ you flattered?”

“You’re obsessed with me,” he smirked.

“Oh, god.” She tried half-heartedly to pull away from him but he was enjoying the thrum of her pulse too much. “I shouldn’t have told you. Now look what I’ve done to your ego.”

“You’re obsessed with me, _and_ you made the first move on me both times.”

“Both times?” she demanded. “I only recall _rocking your world_ once.”

“You suggested this date,” he reminded her smugly.

“Alright then,” she shot back smoothly, and he suddenly felt unsettled by the confidence with which she sat forward, somehow avoiding both the pasta sauce and the candle. “I’m not putting out unless _you_ make the first move tonight.”

“Does paying for dinner count as making a move?”

“Definitely not.”

“Shit.”

 

 

 

After dinner (and dessert, and second dessert, because – as Jemma complained – if they were to be spending more time together they’d need to adapt to each other’s habits, prolific consumption of sweets being one of Fitz’s), they sat in the car lot, the roof of Fitz’s nearly-antique convertible down, the engine off.

“So.”

“Hmm?”

“I suppose—“ He cleared his throat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “I suppose this might be the moment when I should make a move.”

“Some might see it that way, yes.”

“You’re insufferable,” he groaned, but it was that very irrepressible ridiculousness about her that drew him towards the right, leaning over the divider, ghosting a hand over the back of her seat in preparation for cradling the back of her head so he could finally set about snogging her properly—

“I’m not ready to have sex!” Jemma blurted out as he leaned in.

“Oh.” His left hand quickly dropped to the emergency brake rather than her bare knee. “Oh, um – ‘course, we don’t have to—“

“We _did_ just eat, after all.”

He gaped at her, then let his head thump back against the headrest as she laughed. “You mean—“

“I’m sure if we go to your flat and do the stairs a few times we’ll be fine,” Jemma continued, clearly relishing in his whiplash.

“You’re in heels,” he reminded her skeptically.

“And I will _still_ trounce you, _every_ time. Loser makes breakfast.”

 He twisted to face her, wanting to kiss that stupid smug grin off her damn beautiful face but understanding now that dating Jemma Simmons would always be a battle of wits and wills. “I’ll see that action, then.”

She shook his hand, not bothering to hide her glee. “Yes, I imagine after we’ve thoroughly digested that expensive and delicious meal, we’ll _both_ see that action.”

Fitz was quite fortunate he wasn’t pulled over for speeding on the way back to his, but Jemma’s hand was toying with the back of his collar and he was really trying to get them off the road as soon as possible, for everyone’s sake.

 


End file.
